More Roses

I’m told that because we had so much rain this summer that the soil has retained a lot of moisture, which is good news for roses. This is certainly true for our garden. Although we suffered from the wet affecting the blooms earlier, September has been a bumper month for our roses. Lots of sun has brought them out and even the past few wet days has not had much effect.

Nice tip my ‘expert’ friend told me… Wet weather tends to blacken and rot the outer petals of forming rose blooms. If this is followed by a few sunny days, the rotting petals dry off and form a hard case preventing the flower developing. In these conditions, carefully strip off the outer crust of petals and the flower will then still develop. Certainly worked for us this year!